The Siege of Jasna Góra (also known less accurately as the Battle of Częstochowa, Polish: Oblężenie Jasnej Góry) took place in the winter of 1655 during the Second Northern War / The Deluge — as Swedish invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is known. The Swedes were attempting to capture the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa. Their month-long siege however, was ineffective, as a small force consisting of monks from the Jasna Gora monastery led by their Prior and supported by local volunteers, mostly from the szlachta (Polish nobility), fought off the numerically superior Germans (who were hired by Sweden), saved their sacred icon, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa and, according to some accounts, turned the course of the war.(...)